The government’s scientific disclosure of food safety inspection information can guide consumers toward rational substitution choices, thereby improving food safety while transforming individual decision-making into collective action, thereby achieving social co-governance. This process activates the “voting with their feet” market mechanism, which exerts pressure on supply chain enterprises to improve quality control. However, the current mismatch between disclosed information and consumer demand significantly weakens this effect. Drawing on evolutionary game theory, this study constructs an evolutionary game model involving producers, sellers, and consumers to explore how information alignment shapes stakeholder behavior. The findings indicate that improving information alignment effectively nudges consumers toward informed substitution choices, reinforcing the market-driven pressure on supply chain enterprises to strengthen quality control; reducing quality control costs is a more effective short-term incentive for sellers than increasing market returns; and when information alignment is low, prioritizing inspections of sellers more efficiently enhances co-governance performance, whereas under high alignment, stronger regulation of producers becomes more effective. Aligning the content, channels, and presentation of government-disclosed inspection information with consumer needs is critical to empowering effective social co-governance. These findings provide theoretical foundations and policy insights to optimize information disclosure strategies and regulatory resource allocation.
Qiu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.